The field of the present invention is that of wiper blades designed to equip a motor vehicle, More particularly, the invention relates to an end fitting provided in order to be mounted on a flexible support, the end fitting and the flexible support constituting a wiper blade. The invention also relates to said wiper blade and a wiping system incorporating a wiper blade of this type. The invention also relates to an assembly method of the wiper blade.
A motor vehicle is currently equipped with a wiper system for wiping and washing a windscreen of the motor vehicle in order to prevent the motor vehicle driver's view of his environment being disrupted. The wiper system is conventionally driven by an arm performing an angular back-and-forth movement relative to the windscreen and within a field of view of the driver. The wiper system comprises at least one elongate wiper blade that itself carries a squeegee blade produced from a flexible material. The squeegee blade rubs against the windscreen and evacuates the water by removing it from the driver's field of view. The wiper blade is produced in the form either, in a conventional version, of an articulated whippletree which holds the squeegee blade at a number of discrete locations or, in a more recent version, known as the ‘flat blade’ version, of a semi-rigid assembly which holds the squeegee blade along its entire length. In this second solution, the semi-rigid assembly is attached to an arm that comprises the wiper system via an assembly constituted by a mechanical connector and an adapter. The mechanical connector is a piece that is crimped directly onto the wiper blade, whilst the adapter is an intermediate piece that allows the fastening of the connector onto the arm of the wiper system.
Document FR 296461 proposes a wiper system of the second type, of which the semi-rigid assembly comprises a flexible support and an end fitting that are secured via a locking means of the end fitting.
The flexible support comprises an air deflector that is shaped in order to convert a pressure exerted by a stream of air flowing along the windscreen into a bearing force of the squeegee blade against said windscreen. The deflector comprises, in particular, a generally convex ridge in order to facilitate a flow of the stream of air.
The flexible support also comprises two channels for conveying a liquid, such as a windscreen washer liquid, which are provided on either side of a holding zone of the squeegee blade.
The flexible support is chosen from a range of flexible supports of varied dimensions and of different shapes not only in terms of their height and width but also in terms of their symmetry. As a result, there is a need for a range of end fittings that is as vast as the range of flexible supports so that it is possible to fix the end fitting onto the flexible support. The use of a wiper blade according to document FR2964618 gives rise to costs of manufacture, referencing and storage that are considerable and that it is desirable to reduce.
Furthermore, it is desirable to have available a wiper blade that cannot be dismantled in the sense that detachment of the end fitting from the flexible support by an ill-intentioned user gives rise to destruction either of the end fitting or of the flexible support, or both. The result of the aforesaid is that the end fitting proposed by document FR2964618 ought to be improved.